Page 8 - AfrOil Week 38 2019
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PROJECTS & COMPANIES
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Promoting gas
Kyari was touring the PHRC facility just a few days after his return from Houston, where he attended the GASTECH conference. During a briefing at the event, he reiterated that NNPC remained committed to optimising the use of Nigeria’s natural gas resources, as well as its oil.
“Nigeria is more of a gas nation than oil and for us, gas is the future,” he commented. “We have therefore committed to providing the necessary support required to ensure Nigeria takes its rightful place in the international gas
market.”
NNPC will play a key role in promoting
gasification initiatives, developing Nigeria’s gas infrastructure and expanding the domestic gas market, he said. Part of this process will involve encouraging investors to look for opportunities to work with partners such as the Nigeria LNG consortium, he stated.
“There are a lot of opportunities within Nigeria’s LNG value chain,” Kyari remarked. “I would like to assure you that NLNG is the best destination for investment.”
PERFORMANCE
Winners of Angolan bidding round will be able to develop gas as well as oil
ANGOLA
ANGOLA will permit the winners of its next offshore bidding round to develop natural gas as well as oil, a representative of the national hydrocarbons agency noted last week.
Natacha Massano, the head of concessions at the National Oil, Gas and Biofuels Agency (ANPG), noted that the Angolan government had issued a decree in May 2018 to change reg- ulations that reserved all of the gas found in licence areas for the state. This opens up new possibilities for the companies that have “lost interest” in Angola because of the restrictions on gas use, she said on the sidelines of a pres- entation in London.
Under the new rules, Massano explained, investors will be signing agreements that spe- cifically permit the development of oil reserves. All of these documents will include provisions for gas development, including financial con- ditions that will take effect immediately if the investor engages in gas extraction, she said.
She indicated that Luanda had taken this step in a bid to promote the use of gas. Domes- tic gasification will help support the country’s industrial sector and reduce the use of die- sel fuel, she said. Meanwhile, ANPG can also explore opportunities for exporting gas to other countries in the region, she added.
Massano was in London for the third of four roadshow presentations on the bidding round, which will begin officially on October 2. ANPG has said it will accept bids during the October 3-12 period. In the meantime, it is making information on “the geological potential of each
of the blocks up for auction, [as wells as] the full legal, tax and contractual framework inher- ent to participation in the process” available to investors during the roadshow.
Luanda is auctioning off 10 fields in the upcoming licensing round. It is offering poten- tial investors the chance to bid for Block 10 in the Benguela sub-Basin and for Blocks 11, 12, 13, 27, 28, 29, 41, 42 and 43 in the Namibe Basin.
All of these licence areas are located offshore Angola in areas classified as frontier zones and have never been developed.
Angola’s last bidding round took place in 2011, before ANPG was established to replace Sonangol, the national oil company (NOC). The agency’s CEO, Paulino Jeronimo, unveiled plans for the new licensing round in June of this year.
Photo: Umaizi
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Week 38 25•September•2019
